


We Can Live (Like We Both Can't Die)

by geckoholic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Community: be_compromised, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 12:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2581466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>From the very start, the thing she likes best about Clint is that she can't parse him.</em>
</p><p>Or: a short story about spies falling in love, complete with complications and misunderstandings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can Live (Like We Both Can't Die)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jacedesbff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacedesbff/gifts), [Port](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a wee little comment fic for the Trick-and-Treat-meme over at Be Compromised. And then it exploded a bit. Which, honestly, isn't the first time that happened... So I can't say I aimed high with this one, but hey, it was fun to write and hopefully it'll also be fun to read. 
> 
> Beta-read by mementomoripm. Thank you! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Threadbare" by Stone Sour.

From the very start, the thing she likes best about Clint is that she can't parse him. It's frustrating, sure. But Natasha isn't one to linger on frustration, has never had the patience to solve puzzles her life didn't hinge on. So she can't predict him. It doesn't matter, not anymore. They're on the same side now. If this is supposed to work at all, she's got to trust SHIELD to have her best interests at heart. She has to trust _him_. So she lets it go.

 

***

 

Their third mission finds them in South Africa in the midst of summer, and that's where Natasha gets her first hint that Clint Barton's impenetrable patience does, indeed, have its limits. He gets shot – grazed, really, not a serious injury but a damn messy one. They lose their transport and their comm. All they're left with is a few miles to walk in the burning sun, and roundabout an hour in he starts swearing like a sailor. There's sweat beading on his forehead, the whole left side of his t-shirt is dark with drying blood and he scratches at it relentlessly.

"What?" he snaps when he catches her staring, shaking his head and marching past her when she doesn't reply.

In hindsight, she thinks that's maybe when she first fell in love.

 

***

 

The turn into the third year of their partnership is marked by a mission in Barcelona, posing as rich American tourists – because try as you might, for any spy worth their salt Clint's sheer middle-American-ness will always be clear as day – and a gala reception on New Years eve.

Out of these two years, Natasha has spent nearly one and a half trying to figure out if a) if she wants him just because it seems he doesn't want her, b) why he doesn't want her, fucking goddammit, when everyone else does, and c) just how to prove b) wrong and solve a) in one fell swoop.

Natasha really, really doesn't like puzzles.

She's also not one to wait around and pine, and she's done enough of that, so she decides to lay her cards on the table. It's the perfect opportunity. If he still doesn't bite, she'll shrug it off and call it maintaining cover.

They dance. They laugh. They observe. And at midnight, Natasha pins him to a wall and kisses him. He goes along, kisses her back, and until their eyes meet, she thinks that this is it, the first part of the puzzle solved; Clint Barton demystified.

She's wrong.

The look he gives her is one of betrayal as much as it is one of surprise, and there's a small moment, barely a blink, when he glares at her in a way that makes her blood run cold before he's back to pretending. He starts yelling at her the very second they're back in their motel room, and she doesn't quite catch it all, but he goes on about trust and respect and how what she pulled at midnight went against both. He's upset, not angry, that much is obvious, but she still can't figure out exactly why: because she kissed him, because she did it as part of her cover, because she didn't tell him she might.

The experiment isn't a total loss, though. She's got an answer for a), and desperately wishes it was a different one.

 

***

 

Natasha doesn't try again. It takes them a few weeks to regain their footing after Barcelona, and even though she hates to admit it, she's too scared another attempt would drive him away for good.

She's got something to lose, and it's not a fun feeling.

They grow into a unit, blind trust and no secrets except the one, and she decides it's enough. She gets better at reading him, or maybe he just gets better at letting her. She knows she means the world to him. She tries to tell herself that's all she needs.

 

***

 

Five years in, they get assigned to a mission in Italy that goes violently south. They're both bleeding this time, holding each other up while they stumble through the rain until they find themselves an empty barn that offers at least a small amount of shelter. There might be enemy agents on their heels, or there might not. Natasha lost track of that when Clint started blacking out, all her strength and concentration needed to propel them both forwards. It's an illusion of safety, in here, the ramshackle barn barely enough to shield them from the rain, let alone from an attack.

He keeps going in and out of consciousness. She keeps cussing out her now useless comm – he didn't have one to begin with, couldn't because he would've been scanned for that exact thing if his part of the mission would've been successful. There's still the trackers, so at least she can be sure they'll be found eventually, but until then it's on her to keep them both alive.

She curls up next to him as she notices that he's started to shiver, silently offering to trade anything that has ever meant something to her for his survival. The next time he wakes, he stares at her like he's never seen her before. He whispers her name. Inches closer. Puts a hand on her face, much too cold and red from his own blood. The touch goes through her like an electric shock, but she doesn't flinch away, doesn't dare to move. He brings his lips to hers just when she hears a car pull up in front of the barn.

A hand on her gun, not even sure she's still got bullets left, she waits until the rickety wooden door is pushed open. By the time their backup comes into view and she lets her hand fall to her side, he's out cold again.

 

***

 

As she's stitched together and he's opened up on an operating table, Natasha skips through a flurry of emotions. She's rather sure he'll wake up – it's not that bad, it can't be that bad, he has to – but the wait is making her lose her mind.

She watches him as they roll him into the room next to her, still under sedation, willing him to wake up faster so she can ask him, and he can tell her, what it meant, before the idea that he's feeling something more for her too has time to take root and undo her. It's hard, so very hard, to wait while he slowly floats back to consciousness, groaning and hissing when he inadvertently pulls at his fresh stitches.

He blinks when he notices her, forehead in creases, face scrunched up in pain.

She takes a breath, suddenly unsure what do with her hands, settling for crossing her arms in front of her and not caring if that makes her look confrontational. “Do you remember? The barn? Do you remember that –“

“I kissed you,” he interrupts, suddenly looking crestfallen. “Yeah. I'm sorry.”

And just like that, she's out of words. She doesn't have to ask anymore. She understands. And she doesn't say anything. 

 

***

 

Their superiors know better than to reassign her while Clint's in recovery. She sticks around, makes a home out of his room in the infirmary like they both did numerous times before. It's soothing in its familiarity, fucked up as that is, to wait around next to a hospital bed that holds the one person she cares for the most. 

And yet, nothing's actually the same. The air between them is charged in a way it hasn't been since Barcelona. There's an elephant in the room with them, and they both tip-toe around it rather unsuccessfully. 

She takes no joy in watching him eye her from across the room, looking away when their eyes meet. It's not vicious intent or a sense of revenge that makes her silent; it's fear. For reasons she can't begin to comprehend, she's dead afraid of the very same thing she secretly wanted all those years. What if it's not going to work? What if it does? She's not sure either's a thought she can stand. 

He gets released, and they get a new assignment, then another, and eventually he stops glancing her way with furled brows and a longing in his eyes she can't believe she never noticed before. 

 

***

 

Months pass, and they're in Mexico, sunburnt and bored and drunk on cheap tequila. The mission's done, a walk in the park and hardly worth their time, and they have sixteen more hours to kill until extraction. 

Clint's the one who brought the bottle from what just supposed to be a pee break, and Natasha didn't see a reason why they shouldn't. No, that's a lie; she saw plenty – getting drunk on the job is unprofessional to the point of stupidity, for one, and then the risk of saying things under the influence that they can't unsay later – but she didn't care. She snatched the bottle right out of his hands, took a swig, and enjoyed the way his gaze went from incredulous to smug to fond in a matter of seconds. 

Now most of the bottle is gone, her head is swimming despite the fact that she's lying down, and he's sitting by the door to the balcony of their room, looking out on to the busy streets downstairs with a wistful and distant look in his eyes. 

In all the years she's known him, Clint Barton has never been a maudlin drunk. Then again, she's mostly seen him _pretend_ to be smashed in an effort to con people into underestimating him, something he's always been disturbingly good at. What does she know, really. 

“A penny for your thoughts,” she says, and he turns to face her fully. 

“Not worth that much, believe me.” There's something in his eyes that she can't place, and it's a feeling both foreign and familiar, not to be able to guess what's going on inside his head. 

She shrugs, biting down on a hiccup. Stupid alcohol. “Self-deprecating has never been a good look on you.” 

“That's not...” He sighs, reaches up to make the garland hanging from the door frame above him jingle. “I didn't mean it like that.” 

“So tell me,” she prompts, rolling onto her side and closing her eyes when the movement makes her stomach roll and gravity washes over here like a flood. Next time she allows herself to get drunk, she's going to make him invest in the good stuff. 

He grimaces, and for a moment she thinks this conversation might be cut short by a jolt to the bathroom, but his face smooths out again and she realizes the alcohol had nothing to do with it. “Barcelona. I was thinking about Barcelona.”

Another wave of nausea rolls through her, and for a moment she feels like she's falling. She remembers why she never drinks, not like this, not for real. She's dizzy, and she doesn't know what to say. It's becoming a habit; on the job, she's got a way with words that's beyond reproach, but when it comes to him she's struck silent. 

Natasha wants to tell him the truth – that she loved him before they even started calling each other by their first names, that Barcelona was real and a misfire and that she regrets it; that all she's wanted since the barn in Italy is find a way out of this dance that's driving both of them slowly insane. 

“We should get some sleep,” she says instead. “Give ourselves a chance to move past the hangover before we're picked up.” 

He pinches the bridge of his nose, as if the mere mention of a hangover conjured up the ghost of a headache. “Yeah. Guess we should.” 

 

***

 

At the tail end of year six, Clint's sent away to go undercover. Alone. As in: not with her. It's not quite a novelty, both of them have done so in the past, but this one stretches endlessly. He's supposed to be gone a week, but one becomes two and two become a month. A well of information, Coulson calls it in a briefing, so much more successful than anyone figured. Natasha wants to strangle him. 

For six weeks, she waits. That's not all she does, of course, there's other missions, she's still got a job to do without him there. It is, however, the longest time they spend apart since... well, ever. He's inserted himself into a lot more of her daily routine – as much as people like them get to have one – than she'd been aware. She doesn't know where he gets the cafe latte he always brings for her every morning they're at the New York headquarters, alongside with his plain dark one, and she's overwhelmed by the sheer amount of coffee shops that exist en route from his place to work. She tries to sniff it out, an endeavor that leads nowhere except to an incredible amount of mediocre coffee and a heartburn or two. Her paperwork is done twice as fast, but doing it isn't half as entertaining without him there to distract them both. Most other agents slavishly obey the 'comms-are-for-mission-talk-only' rule that Clint never gave two shits about, keeping up a steady background chatter during the lulls and the waiting and all the other times she now ends up being alone with her thoughts. 

He gets back in the middle of the night, on a commercial flight rather than a covert extraction, cover still intact so he can pick it back up should the need ever emerge. She waits for him at the airport – upside of being a spy, if she wants any sort of information she has a way to come upon it – and drinks in the confused expression his face morphs into when he sees her. She's wearing a flowery dress, her hair in a pony tail, less make up than usual, and wraps him into an enthusiastic hug as soon as he's within reach. Maintaining cover and posing as some sort of overjoyed girlfriend just in case someone's been tracking him this far. 

“What's going on,” he whispers as he hugs back, his hand at the small of her back, “have I been made?”

She tangles their fingers together when they part, smiling like Christmas morning, and leans in close. “No. I'm not here officially. Just being careful, that's all.” 

Clint glances at her sidelong, confusion written into every line of his face, but he goes along as she steers him towards a fast food restaurant by the exit and gestures for him to sit down. 

“You must be tired,” Natasha says when they're seated across from each other. She didn't script this beforehand, plan what she'd do or say or try to predict his responses. That would've made it feel like a mission, like playing pretend, and she needs this to be real. 

“Uh yeah. Kinda.” He grabs the menu, but doesn't read it, instead places it on the table in front of himself and looks at her with his head cocked to the side. “Nat, what's going on? Tell me.” 

She takes a breath. “I missed you.” 

He doesn't respond, keeps looking at her, like the words she just said don't add up to a complete sentence and he's waiting for the punch line. 

“You were gone a really long time, and I missed you. I've gotten used to being around you.” Even to her own ears that sounds clinical, as if she's reciting facts off a report, and she pauses to regroup. “In Mexico, last year, when we you bought that disgusting bottle of Tequila and we got drunk, I asked you what you were thinking about, do you remember what you said?” 

“I wasn't that drunk,” he says, breaking eye contact and picking the menu back up. “Yeah. I told you I was thinking about Barcelona. Why're you bringing that up?” 

“Because I meant it. Barcelona. I meant that. I didn't kiss you as part of our cover. I...” She trails off, resists the urge to snatch the damn menu out of his hands. “Would you look at me? Please?” 

He lowers the stupid thing just enough to comply, although he doesn't seem quite able to look her in the eye. “So what you're saying is... since _Barcelona_?”

The word sounds strange, all of a sudden, weighted, like some sort of code word that will lose all meaning if either of them says it just one more time. She nods. 

“Wow. Okay.” He finally sets the menu aside and runs a hand down his face. “That's... Why didn't you say anything? Back then, I get, but later, and after Italy, and – “

She crosses her arms on the table in front of her and leans forward. “Well, why didn't you?” 

“Yeah, fair point,” he replies, now running his hand through the short spikes of his hair and scratching. It's endearing, in a strange sort of way, and she reaches out to gently pulls his hand away from his face. 

She leans in further, and kisses him. 

 

***

 

It's New Year's Eve of Natasha's seventh year with SHIELD, and they're in Barcelona again, but there's no mission this time, no cover, no one to fool or pretend for. There's just them; a motel room, a bed, and a whole new world that neither of them quite knows how to deal with yet. 

But that's okay. They're trying together.


End file.
